Childhood Dreams: Dogs and Cats and Big Raspberries

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Sometimes we get so busy that we forget how fortunate we are. We tend to see the glass as half empty rather than half full and get bogged down with things that really don't matter. We worry about what we haven't accomplished instead of celebrating what we have achieved. I bet I'm not the only PETA Primer who can remember being a teenager and thinking that 20-year-olds were old, 30 year-olds were over the hill, and 50-year-olds were ancient beyond words. Now, everyone under the age of 40 seems like a kid to me.

I was reminded of all this recently while looking through my parents' photo albums. I found an old school newsletter from my elementary school days. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was the headline on one of the columns. Most of my classmates wanted to be ballerinas, firefighters, baseball players, mothers, or teachers. At the very end was my response: "I don't want a job. I want to have millions of dogs and cats and grow big raspberries."

The newsletter was written almost 50 years ago, and looking back, it seems that my childhood dreams weren't so far off the mark. I am approaching retirement, and soon I won't have to have a job. I grow raspberries that just need a little more pruning and compost in order to become "big raspberries," and although I don't personally have millions of dogs and cats, I am helping millions of dogs and cats by rescuing as many as I can provide for and joining PETA members everywhere in helping to end animal abuse and suffering.

Have any of your childhood dreams come true?